How to stop Spotify opening automatically on mobile?

[foryoublue94]

So I often listen to spotify on my desktop computer at home and my laptop at work.
When I playing music on a separate device and using my phone, often times Spotify opens itself automatically and the music controls show up in my notification bar on mobile. So for example, I'll be playing a game on mobile and try to turn down the volume on the game and end up turning down the music on my PC because Spotify opened suddenly when I did not want it to.
I have to open the app, close the app, and then clear the media controls from my notification bar, and most of the time it just pops right back up immediately. The only thing I've known to work is force stopping the app.

Not enough space to continue typing question. Cool, thanks.

[Annoyed_user_99999]

Just want to add yet another VERY annoyed user to the queue......

[KrisHSweden]

I have a corporate phone, Samsung Ultra, & exactly same problem. Starting to be a dealbreaker as it opens at all times. Fix this Spotify or there will customer loss.

[BrotherGroovin]

No solution is available, it seems. 

Sucks for us who pay for Spotify, so far as Spotify cares, it seems.

[rey384]

I was struggling with that after update to Android 15 on my Samsung S23 Ultra. But all you need is to disable Spotify Connect in Spotify Settings->Applications and Devices->Other Devices->and uncheck Spotify Connect. Hope it helps you 🙂

[Kaiylw0lf]

That's on the first page of this thread, and it's been confirmed that changing this setting doesn't fix the issue this thread is talking about. 

[kimsmv]

Honestly insane, I've noticed this issue happening a lot in the last week or so. I have a Samsung S23. Every time I unlock my phone, spotify opens. I'm listening to it on my pc. I dont understand why this is happening??

[Yordan · Accepted solution]

Hey everyone,

It seems that there are a couple of different behaviors being mentioned here in the thread, so I wanted to shed a bit more light on the matter. Click on each section below to expand it.

Spotify is automatically running in the background

Spoiler

Most mobile phone manufacturers develop their own versions of the Android OS to tailor the experience for their users. This, however, may result in some discrepancies in the availability of certain options/features or software limitations.

If you have a Samsung device, it seems that it's not currently possible to prevent processes from starting automatically when the device is rebooted without additional system access. Still, the following suggestions should serve as valid workarounds:

1. Force-stop the app by heading to your device's Settings > Apps > Spotify.
2. Add Spotify to the list of deep sleeping apps.
3. Toggle off the 'Spotify Connect control' option in Spotify's settings > Apps and devices > Other devices.
4. Revoke the 'Nearby devices' permission, found in Settings > Apps > Spotify > Permissions.

For other phone manufacturers, look for an 'Auto-start' or 'Auto-launch' option in your device's app- or battery settings and exclude Spotify from the list. Another feature which you may find useful is 'Hide player when media session has ended', usually found in the Sound & vibration settings.

Spotify starts playing as soon as a new playback device is connected

Spoiler

This behavior is usually related to the particular device you're connecting your phone to. For example, when I'm at home and I connect my phone to my integrated amp via Bluetooth, Spotify doesn't start playing automatically when I open it. However, connecting to my car's head unit causes the app to initiate playback if it's running.

This can also occur when connecting headphones, both wired and wireless - the app registers the new connection and switches playback to it instead.

Although this isn't something that can be turned off at the moment, we’re regularly testing and launching new features and improvements to the app, so your feedback on this is important, as it may ultimately end up paving the way for our broader user experience. Thanks for sharing it here, we appreciate it.

In the meantime, there's a live idea about turning this off which you may find interesting, feel free to check it out and show your support.

Hope this clears things up. The Community is just a post away if there's anything else you need assistance with.

[GravyMonster]

@Yordan I appreciate you making the effort to reply to this, but that addresses some of the corollary issues people mentioned in passing in this thread. It completely ignores what the OP requested, which was to allow us to have completely separate instances of Spotify running on each of our devices. We want the option to NOT have them unify playback, as this can be incredibly annoying when you do not want that behaviour due to where and when you're listening - eg. moving from a car in to an office and working.

Any feedback you can provide on that would actually be of benefit because some of us have been waiting more than 3 years for this 'feature' to be remedied.

[Ink__]

Plan

Free/Premium

Country

Device

Samsung Galaxy A55

Operating System

Android

My Question or Issue

I have spotify in deep sleeping mode on my phone, but as I am in other apps with spotify totally turned off, when I start watching a video for example, spotify somehow turns on and starts playing music over the video. The problem is when I am wearing headphones. No other app does this.

[AET290]

Just to add, same issue here. I've removed Spotify from my phone as a result and will us either platforms. 

My issue is the app opening itself whenever I get in my car which has Spotify built-in - and fortunately for me the only time I really use it. If I then close the app on my phone it stops the music playing in the car, and then reopens the app. Quite often it also causes an issue in the car of "playing on another device", when I reality it isn't.

As per OP, there should be an easy way to prevent this. In fact, the auto opening, etc should be off by default, not on...

[iron_clad]

Same issue right now. Spotify is closed and I open another app and start watching a video, but instead of the audio from the video, I'm listening to the previously played track. I don't want that. I have forced stopped the app too many times and it is getting irritating. I am tired of having to go and force stop the app so that I can watch a reel in peace. please do something to fix this. 

[tzexin7chew]

Plan

Premium

Device

Samsung A55

Operating System

Android version 16

My Question or Issue

I've been having this issue for a while where my phone shows the notification of the song I'm playing on my laptop Spotify despite the app not being active on my phone. I know there's the feature where you can transfer the song from being played on one device to another, but this is annoying because it's overlaying my other notifications. I also used to be able to solve it by just opening Spotify on my phone and closing it, but now it pops up again after a while. Is there any way to fix this? 

(it's a different song because it changed but as you can see, it is the next song in the playlist)